Moving AARP Ahead: From Good to Great
2002 AARP All-staff Assembly
Hyatt Regency
Washington, DC
July 25, 2002 at 2:00 p.m.
When we gathered last July for our All-staff Assembly, Board members Tess Canja and Keith Campbell and Executive Director Horace Deets handed me the baton and said, "Here, take it and run with it." And it's been an incredible year.
In my remarks that day I told you how proud I was to have this opportunity to serve. I talked about what a sold foundation AARP is built upon, and I said, "Watch us here at AARP…we're creating a powerful groundswell on behalf of 50-plus America."
Well, the groundswell is growing…largely because of your hard work. Each one of you does a job individually that results collectively in this powerful groundswell on behalf of 50-plus America. And, on behalf of our 35.2 million members, I want to thank you.
I also want to thank Jim Parkel, Marie Smith, Betty Severyn, Ken Smith and the rest of our Board of Directors for their leadership and foresight in setting the direction of our Association. We are very fortunate to have a Board that carries out its stewardship so well, that encourages a real partnership with staff, and that commits so much toward the betterment of society.
They have given us a vision that is our guiding star: "A society in which everyone ages with dignity and purpose and in which AARP helps people fulfill their goals and dreams." This is inspiration as well as aspiration.
And, the Board has given us a compelling mission statement with a powerful purpose that reminds us every day of who we are and what we're about: "AARP is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for all as we age. We lead positive social change and deliver value to members through information, advocacy and service."
This is really the heart and soul of our Association…consistent with our past; critical to our future. To achieve this, last year I talked about three great goals that are truly worthy of AARP:
- To be the most successful and acknowledged organization in America for positive social change.
- To deliver on our promise to each member: to help them make their own choices, reach their goals and dreams, and make the most of life after 50.
- And to be a world leader in global aging.
Our vision, mission and goals are what define us as an organization. They define our long-term strategy, our short-term priorities and our day-to-day work. They remind us that in serving our members, we serve all generations. And because of the demographic and economic shifts taking place in America and throughout the world, they are more important now than ever before.
This places an awesome responsibility on our shoulders. Our job is to lead our members-and help lead the nation-into this uncharted future beyond 50. As the old saying goes, we only have three options: to lead, to follow, or to get out of the way. We have chosen to lead. That's what great organizations do.
And, indeed, we are leading. We have had a very successful year. Last July, I said we would pursue our three great goals through a strategy of continuity and change. And this past year has had its share of each.
It was a year of change…not change for the sake of change, but change for the sake of purpose. We carefully planned new initiatives and brought them to the Board for approval. I said last July that we were going to launch a major, integrated, well funded and well planned national program that will make a positive difference in people's lives. And we're doing so. Life Choices is Board-approved and rolling out.
Our physical activity program is already in pilot in two cities and it will feed into Life Choices as a key part of helping people live independently as long as possible.
And with recent Board approval of our operational plan, we have renewed our commitment to Community Service with a bold, ambitious program that incorporates our National Day of Service and will greatly expand our ranks of committed volunteers.
Last year we committed to increasing our advocacy leadership at the national and state levels. And we have, with aggressive legal, legislative and education strategies and tactics. This week and last, in the prescription drug debate in Congress, over fifty thousand AARP activists contacted their Senators to urge on the legislative process. And we're going to keep the drumbeat going until the Senate acts. And our advocacy leadership is now equally apparent in the states, where AARP is now quite probably the strongest grassroots organization in the U.S., and growing stronger. Our investments in state capacity building are really paying off.
We also expanded our Hispanic membership program, including launching our Spanish-language publication, Segunda Juventud. And in response to September 11, we inaugurated our National Day of Service. And planning is well underway for our second one in September.
We held our first annual member event, Life @ 50+: A Celebration of You!, in Dallas. Soon we'll gather for the second one, in San Diego. We also held a successful National Leadership Conference, centered on strategic planning. And, the AARP Bulletin and AARP Webplace got attractive new looks.
To move toward our third great goal-leadership in global aging-we created a new plan for AARP's international affairs, that is going to be an important step forward in influencing the world's policy debate on health care, older workers, pension programs and other vital issues that affect societies everywhere.
But these important steps to excel outside our organization must be accompanied by change within. And so we took steps to improve our internal operations. We introduced cost containment measures that have already resulted in millions of dollars being reallocated to priority programs. We reorganized to integrate our advocacy operations within the State and National Initiatives group.
We consolidated our member experience functions, elevated the Office of Diversity and had Finance and Communications report to the CEO. We realigned and reduced our level of personnel, which was difficult for all of us. And we revised our volunteer structure and introduced our new People Strategy to make AARP an even better place to work.
While all this was taking place, we finished the job of opening an office in every state. We continued to build the AARP brand, continued to increase and improve our ASI services and revenues, and expanded our membership base to well over 35 million.
All these changes have moved us closer to achieving our vision, mission and goals. We have much to celebrate as we gather here, and we can all be very proud of what we have accomplished.
We worked hard, and we changed, and we built on our solid foundation. And now we're catching our breath, at least for a day. Now what? Shall we stand pat, confident that we've got it right?
Will Rogers put it this way. He said, "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." Well, you know as well as I do, that we have no intention of just sitting there. We want to keep going…we want to climb to the top of the mountain. And here's how we're going to do it.
If the theme coming out of last year's assembly was "Continuity and Change," the operative words at this point, with so much now set in place, are "Integration and Execution."
Of course, continuity and change will always be with us. We need continuity. Once we get something right, we want to stay with it. And we have a lot that's right and consistent with our vision, mission, goals and strategies.
As for change, I think we all understand that change is inevitable. It does happen, and it will continue to happen. The only question is whether we will manage change or whether change will manage us.
Clearly, we have to manage. That means getting the pace of change right. If we go too fast, and outdistance our capabilities-either because we can't do it all well, or we don't have the resources-we risk burning people out and causing mistakes.
On the other hand, if we go too slow, we miss opportunities, we signal that it's just business as usual and we stall out. Some people no doubt think we are changing too fast; others think our pace is too slow. We want to drive the organization at about 65 miles an hour-not 35 and not 105.
Getting the speed right is as important as being sure of where we're going and how we're getting there. Cruise control doesn't work. We need to be engaged, closely monitoring the pace of change. The Board, the Executive Team and the Leadership Team are all working on this, and some of the new tools we have developed-like the dashboard-will help us monitor this and get it right.
It's important that everyone be aware of the changes within AARP and that we each manage the changes going on in our own work areas. It all begins with understanding our vision, mission, goals and strategies and how each of us can contribute to achieving them.
Within the next few weeks, you will receive a copy of our revised strategic plan, as approved by the Board, so you will be clear on our general direction. We'll also provide a new set of organization charts, showing our structure and who does what within AARP. And the August issue of Inside AARP will be devoted to the subject of managing change at our Association.
The message is this: we have changed a lot, and we will continue to change. We have many things in place now. Our course is set, and our direction is clear. But we do need to be good managers of change as we continually adapt to the wants and needs of our changing membership and society and strive to become even more effective and efficient.
Today, I do want to announce another change, one that further strengthens our management structure. Effective August 19, Tom Nelson will assume the new position of Chief Operating Officer of AARP. He will oversee our three big groups: Membership, State and National Initiatives and Operations. Richard Henry, our Associate Executive Director for Operations, will continue as a key member of the Executive Team, as will the AED who replaces Dawn Sweeney in Membership, and the replacement for Tom in SNI.
I will retain direct oversight of Finance, Communications, the Office of General Counsel and the Policy and Strategy group headed by John Rother, as well as indirect oversight of ASI, where Dawn has now become president.
This will strengthen our team, reduce the number of my direct reports and give me more opportunity to expand my role in advocacy, corporate outreach and other outside work on behalf of AARP. Tom will be an outstanding COO and we are looking forward to working together in this new set up.
As I said, our vision, mission, and goals are set in place. We have new strategies, programs and systems to help us achieve them. Our great challenge now is to integrate them into our culture and operations and execute them to achieve our goals.
Integration and execution don't just happen. We have to work at them…every day. Integration means linking our goals and strategies with our people and our operations. It means that every one of us is engaged in our success.
There's a story about the early days of NASA, in the mid-60's. A TV network sent a crew down to the Johnson Space Center to interview employees about their jobs. One of the people they talked to was a janitor, who was sweeping the floors. When the reporter asked him what he did at NASA, the janitor replied, "My job is to help put a man on the moon."
Now, there was a guy who understood that his work contributed to the goals of the organization.
I can see real progress in our integration. But to be fully integrated, we all need to understand where AARP is going and what we're doing. We each need to personalize it, so we can contribute to success. And, we need to make sure we have the right people fully engaged in the right jobs with the proper resources to succeed.
And that's what our People Strategy is all about. Our objective is to create a world-class workplace with a world- class workforce. What does that really mean? As the People Strategy describes it, we mean leading by example; being open to ideas; continually learning and applying new knowledge and skills; making decisions on time and on the money; being creative risk-takers, and holding ourselves accountable for the results we commit to achieving.
I want to promise you something today. It's this: the People Strategy is not just a bunch of words, not a collection of nice sounding platitudes. We are going to make it happen. I promise you that.
In addition to helping our people achieve their best, we also have to manage our resources and allocate them where they will do the most good.
Leading positive social change and delivering valued service to our members takes money. It isn't enough to have great ideas and sound plans. We need to make major investments in building our Community Service and Life Choices. State and national advocacy is also expensive, especially if we are going to battle the big special interests and defend low-income and other vulnerable people.
As I've said before, AARP is a financially strong institution. We have the usual ups and downs, but our revenue trend is up, and we are doing a good job of controlling our expenses. But we need to do better. Our ability to achieve our goals and serve our country is tied directly to our growth in revenues and our stewardship of the Association's resources.
This means we need to be more entrepreneurial if we are going to have the resources to do great works in leading positive social change and serving our members. We must commit to building our revenue base. ASI is working on new and expanded products with good revenue potential. And we can expand our philanthropy among members to bring in more money for our community service programs. There are other opportunities, as well.
And let's not forget that we can save money, too, which is just as good as earning new revenues. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, a million dollars saved is a million earned. That's why we have set up a resource management team under Mary Morgan and brought in a specialist firm to help institutionalize cost realignment. And we welcome your ideas in how to practice what Ben Franklin preached.
Even with all our progress, we're still nowhere close to reaching our potential. We're a good organization, but we have the potential to be great. Many organizations envy our track record. They marvel at our success. But we can do so much more. In fact, we have to, if we are going to realize our vision and achieve our three great goals.
Our challenge is to go from good to great. Think about that. Think of Major League Baseball. Just getting to the big leagues is incredibly difficult. Once there, a .250 batting average is considered good. But a player who hits .300 may be headed to the Hall of Fame. What's the difference? It's that over the course of a season, the .300 hitter-the future Hall of Famer-gets 36 more hits. That's it. About once every 5 games-the "great" player gets one more hit than the "good" player. It doesn't seem like that much of a difference, but the payoff is huge.
It takes work and skill to be good. And the key for going from good to great is execution.
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is a beautiful piece of music-but only if the orchestra performs it well. Each individual member of the orchestra has to know his or her part and play it in concert with all the other parts. Only then, do we hear the music that Beethoven intended. The music is only as good-or as great-as the orchestra executes it.
We have a great vision. We have a great mission. We have great goals. But, they are only great if we execute our parts to achieve them. The key to our greatness is integration and execution.
What is the payoff for AARP to go from good to great? It will mean that:
- A couple in their 70's will have prescription-drug coverage and won't have to choose which drugs they can't afford to take.
- Working women and other caregivers will have an easier time coping with the stress of parents who need help and kids at home.
- People will look to AARP for a way to give back-through volunteering and philanthropy.
- Grandparents will successfully raise their grandkids, using us as an important resource.
- The recent retiree will be more confident of her security in retirement.
- The nursing home resident and his family will ask for and receive proper palliative care.
- And, our poster child for the boomer set, Janet Hamilton, who last year became our 35 millionth member, will lead a productive and fulfilling life as an AARP member for many decades to come.
Thirty-five million members, one AARP, with a strong, clear voice.
If we keep focused on our priorities; integrate our strategies, our people and our operations; and if we execute well, we will become the most successful organization in America for positive social change, deliver superior value to our members and be a leader in global aging.
And as a result:
- Our members will be better off.
- Our Association will be stronger.
- Our communities will be better places to live.
- We will strengthen and serve our great nation and the world beyond.
And, all of us will be able someday to live in a society in which everyone ages with dignity and purpose, and in which AARP helps people fulfill their goals and dreams. And every one of us will be extremely proud that we helped make it happen.
